The Pentagon has placed hundreds of Army military police soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on alert for a potential deployment to Minnesota, according to two U.S. officials.
The preparations are tied to the possibility that President Donald Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act, a rarely used law that allows the president to deploy federal troops on American soil.
ABC News previously reported Saturday that roughly 1,500 active-duty soldiers from at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson in Alaska had been ordered to ready themselves for such a mission.
Federal agents hold a person down as they are surrounded by tear gas used to deter protesters in Minneapolis, Minnesota, January 21, 2026.
Leah Millis/Reuters
No specific mission to Minnesota has been developed, both U.S. officials said, adding that the purpose is to ensure the president has a range of options should he decide to deploy troops.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act, a statute that has been used sparingly and most often during the civil rights era, when federal troops were deployed to suppress unrest and enforce school desegregation.
“I don’t think we need it at this point, and hopefully we won’t need it,” Trump said in an interview with NewsNation on Tuesday.
-ABC News’ Steve Beynon
